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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26384263">Rupture</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celia_and/pseuds/Celia_and'>Celia_and</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abandonment, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Break Up, Controlling and abusive behavior by antagonist, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Manipulation, Escape From Abuser, Evil Snoke, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Falling In Love, Financial Control, First Dates, First Meetings, Happy Ending, Happy Sex, Healing, Heavy Angst, Hybrid texting and narrative, Lawyer Ben Solo, Missionary Position, Reconciliation, Reference to Police Corruption, Sacrifice, Smut, Suspected electronic surveillance, Texting, Vaginal Fingering, Zoo, crying sex, legal system, no infidelity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 09:00:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,387</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26384263</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celia_and/pseuds/Celia_and</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>He told her once, when she was wrapped up in a blanket and sprawled across his lap as he stroked her hair, that it was probably some sort of world record, how quickly he’d fallen in love with her. Because by the time his legs had taken him the six steps across the floor separating them, it was a done deal.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She’d laughed and made him bend down so she could kiss him without unwrapping herself from the blanket.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>That was early on, back when he used to pretend he was allowed to love her.</em>
</p><p>----------</p><p>It’s been a year since he left her. It never gets easier.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>321</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1271</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This gorgeous moodboard is by <a href="https://twitter.com/LaneReads">@LaneReads</a> on Twitter! 💛</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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<hr/><p> </p><p>He never went to get his own coffee; there were people for that. It would have been a waste of his $700-an-hour time. But one day he was on his way back from a client meeting and urgently needed caffeine to stave off the tension headache that had been brewing all morning. So he had the driver drop him off at the Starbucks around the corner from the office.</p><p>He thinks often about all the different ways that morning could have gone. He could’ve called his assistant after the client meeting and had someone go for a coffee run, and it probably would’ve been waiting on his desk when he got back. He could’ve made do with the espresso from the office kitchen. He could’ve gone to any of the thirteen other Starbucks within a five-block radius of his building.</p><p>He could’ve done any of those things. But if he had, he wouldn’t have met <em>her</em>.</p><p>She was holding one of those kitchy mugs that Starbucks seems to offer in case tourists haven’t been able to find any other stores downtown in which to buy tacky souvenirs. She was wearing an oversized green parka. She looked up from the mug as if seeking someone to share her enjoyment of the whimsical floral print. Her eager eyes could’ve alighted on someone else. But they didn’t—they found him.</p><p>She smiled brightly at him and held up the mug for his inspection. He never so much as glanced at it. He was too busy reeling from the realization that what he was feeling was apparently a way that human beings could feel. That <em>he</em> could feel.</p><p>He told her once, when she was wrapped up in a blanket and sprawled across his lap as he stroked her hair, that it was probably some sort of world record, how quickly he’d fallen in love with her. Because by the time his legs had taken him the six steps across the floor separating them, it was a done deal.</p><p>She’d laughed and made him bend down so she could kiss him without unwrapping herself from the blanket.</p><p>That was early on, back when he used to pretend he was allowed to love her.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>He was always jumpy when they went out, always looking over his shoulder. Rey noticed, he knew, but she never asked why. Maybe she’d told herself she didn’t want to know: that whatever the reason, it would hurt her.</p><p>She’d spent a lot of her life being hurt. Too much. He used to wish he could’ve taken all her hurts ten times over if it would’ve spared her. That was before he knew how deeply <em>he</em> would have to hurt her.</p><p>He used to wonder how she did it: how she still found the good in people. Angry she could be—resentful too—but where she loved, she loved fiercely. She’d told him she loved him one night when they were getting ready for bed. She was wearing one of his old tee-shirts and standing next to him at the his-and-hers sinks while they both brushed their teeth. She bent down, spat out the toothpaste, straightened up, looked at him through the mirror, and said matter-of-factly, “Oh, I love you.”</p><p>He stood there for a second with the toothbrush hanging loosely from his mouth as the words filtered through a haze. He barely remembered that he needed to spit first, before he could say it back and kiss her a dozen times and scoop her up and carry her to bed.</p><p>He knew her well enough to be afraid that she’d regret it, after, and withdraw. But when she’d gotten up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and stubbed her toe on the bed on the way back and fallen onto his legs and woken him up, she had let him bundle her up in the duvet and carefully examine her toe to make sure it wasn’t broken and kiss it better. Then she’d hiked the duvet up to her waist like a big fluffy marshmallow and climbed on top of him and ridden his cock until she got warm enough to take it off, and she’d planted her hands firmly on his chest and looked in his eyes and fucked him slowly, until his cock was dripping with her and she came apart in a slow wave of breath and trembling. She’d let him hold her afterward, and <em>God,</em> he hadn’t known this much happiness was possible.</p><p>He probably should’ve known then that it couldn’t last. And maybe he did, deep down. That’s why he’d stayed awake that whole night: so he wouldn’t miss a second of the part when it was still good.</p><p> </p>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Do I know how many chapters this will be? No. Do I know it will be angsty? Yes. 😊</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Moodboard by <a href="https://twitter.com/LaneReads">@LaneReads</a> on Twitter! 💛</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>She was almost always cold. He used to joke that she was cold-blooded, his lizard who needed sun to survive. She liked to stretch out on him like he was a hot rock. Her body wasn’t built for Chicago winters—or Chicago springs or falls, for that matter. There were about six weeks in the middle of the summer when it was warm enough for her.</p><p>“What are you doing living in Chicago, lizard? You should be in the desert,” he’d asked once, jokingly.</p><p>She didn’t smile back. “I’m waiting for someone.”</p><p>He didn’t ask who. He didn’t know how to. She didn’t tell him. He just tried to love her a little harder and hoped that was enough.</p><p>Ben never said anything about her at the office, of course. He wasn’t sure how soon Snoke found out. Maybe it was because Ben was smiling more, or trying to leave work earlier in the evening. He was working harder than he ever had before to try to fit fourteen hours’ worth of work into ten or twelve, but Snoke always found more for him to do. He didn’t complain; he never complained. If Snoke told him to do something, he did it.</p><p>But when the sun set and he turned on the light in his office for another six hours of work, he would always think of Rey, and how cold she must be without her hot rock.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  
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</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>She almost never gave him her smiles anymore, and when she did they were brittle. He started to forget what her dimples looked like. She often curled in on herself to try to protect what little warmth her body gave her. It felt like her soul was curling in on itself too.</p><p>He didn’t know how to be what she needed. He started leaving work early, taking the stairs instead of the elevator so he didn’t have to walk by Snoke’s assistant’s desk. He spent all the time he could with Rey. He cooked for her and bought her flowers and brought up all the things that used to make her laugh. She would smile a cold, far-away ghost of a smile. Like she was gone and had left her body behind.</p><p>She still initiated sex. She would kiss him fiercely and lead him to the bedroom and turn off the light, so he couldn’t see her face. Her body still desired him, at least. As she lay on her back and took his cock, she still gave him those whimpers and cries and moans that she always had, and when he snaked an arm under the small of her back and rolled his hips to make his cock stroke her inner walls the way that she loved, she came just as hard. She would even roll over and reach for his hand to hold on the pillow by her head as he fucked her from behind, slowly—to feel the give of her flesh under him and around him, and the welcoming wetness of the little hole that closed when his cock left it and opened anew when he fed it back in. When he stayed hard for long enough after coming, he would keep thrusting inside her, so she would keep letting him hold her hand. <em>Please,</em> he would breathe against her neck, not even knowing what he was asking for. She would come again, with a strangled cry that was like a sob. He tried to make himself believe that as long as they had this, maybe there was still a way back to her.</p><p>She would get up to go to the bathroom as soon as he couldn’t keep going any more. He would find wetness on the pillow that might have been tears.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  
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</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“You seem distracted, my boy.”</p><p>“It’s nothing, sir.”</p><p>Snoke tuts. “I wouldn’t call your special lady friend <em>nothing,</em> would you?”</p><p>The fear, when it comes, is cold. “No, sir.”</p><p>Snoke won’t pounce yet, Ben knows. It’s not his way. He’s seen him often enough in court to know what’s coming. Snoke leans back in his chair and tents his fingers under his chin. “You two have been together for some time.”</p><p>Ben clears his throat. “Nearly a year, sir.”</p><p>“Indeed.” It’s no surprise to Snoke. A litigator should never ask a question he doesn’t already know the answer to. “And how do you feel your work performance has been this past year?”</p><p>Ben has more billable hours and a better win record than anyone in the firm, and they both know it. “Good, sir.”</p><p>“Really? Even sneaking out of work early for your...” His mouth contracts in a sneer. “...lovers’ trysts?”</p><p>Ben is silent. The blow won’t come yet, he knows. There’s more buildup to come.</p><p>“I like to think I’ve been good to you, my boy. Shepherding you through law school. Hand-picking you from a hundred equally deserving students. Giving you a job, a place to live. One could argue that you owe everything to me.”</p><p><em>Not everything. Not her. </em>“Yes, sir.”</p><p>“Has my favor become a burden for you?”</p><p>“No, sir.”</p><p>Snoke purses his wrinkled lips. “It seems you no longer value it.”</p><p>“I do value it, sir.”</p><p>Snoke leans forward, planting his forearms on the polished desk between them. “Then act that way. Leave the girl.”</p><p>There it is. Ben swallows, but his mouth is dry. “No, sir.”</p><p>Snoke’s eyes narrow. “I think I must’ve misheard you, my boy. It sounded to this old man’s ears that you might have said no.” His mouth twists in a mirthless smirk.</p><p>Ben clears his throat. “I did.” Sweat tickles his temples.</p><p>“Hmm, that does present a problem. Because if you were to disobey a direct order from a senior partner, this firm would have no choice but to let you go. And it would be too bad if no other firm in Chicago would return your call. Or New York, or DC, or London. It would be regrettable if you went home to find yourself evicted from the penthouse you’ve been renting from the property management company in which I’m a majority stakeholder. It would be a shame if you had added your trusted mentor to as a joint administrator of your financial accounts and were to find them all cleaned out.”</p><p>Ben clenches his hands to stop the shaking. “I don’t care about any of that, sir.”</p><p>Snoke stands with effort. He walks slowly around the desk to stand over Ben, and says calmly, “It would be truly awful if anything were to happen to your precious Rey.”</p><p>Ben says nothing, just looks straight ahead and tries not to vomit.</p><p>“Nearly a year,” Snoke muses quietly. “Around the time a relationship starts to lose its shine. For all you know, she’s tired of you.”</p><p>Ben shakes his head steadfastly, swallowing around a lump in his throat. “No. Rey loves me.”</p><p>“Oh?” Snoke feigns surprise. “She’s just as happy as ever?”</p><p>Ben won’t cry in front of Snoke. He <em>won’t.</em></p><p>Snoke bends down and rests one hand on the back of Ben’s chair and the other on the opposite armrest, caging him in. His foul breath is hot on Ben’s face. “She’s better off without you. And you know it. You don’t want to find out what will happen to her if you test me on this.”</p><p>
  <em>I love you.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Okay.</em>
</p><p>She <em>is</em> better off without him. His chin quivers. “Fine,” he whispers.</p><p>Snoke leans even closer. “What’s that? I didn’t quite hear you.”</p><p>Ben slumps in defeat. “Fine.”</p><p>Snoke straightens up. “That’s what I thought you’d say, my boy. Now be useful for a change. Go make us some money.”</p><p>Ben doesn’t remember walking back to his office.</p><p>There’s a decorative vase with stones in it on the credenza. Or at least there was. Now it’s just glass.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>He doesn’t take his coat off. It’ll be easier if he doesn’t need to stay for any longer than he needs to after it’s done.</p><p>She can tell something is wrong. She busies herself in her little kitchen in the corner, not meeting his eyes. Like if she doesn’t see it, it doesn’t count. He wonders if that’s why she always turned the lights off for sex.</p><p><em>Oh.</em> He’ll never get to be inside her again. Or hold her hand.</p><p>He clears his throat. He doesn’t know how to do this. “I think we both know this isn’t working.”</p><p>She freezes in the middle of putting a clean plate in the cupboard. She doesn’t turn around.</p><p>“You’re clearly not happy.”</p><p>She sets the plate down slowly on the counter.</p><p>“Maybe it’s best if we go our separate ways.”</p><p>She turns around slowly, and he’d rather she never look at him again if it meant he didn’t need to see the hurt that lives in her eyes. “You’re breaking up with me?”</p><p>He nods. “Yes,” he croaks.</p><p>“I thought...” Her hands jerk in an apologetic shrug. “I thought you loved me.”</p><p>“I did,” Ben says, looking past her ear. “Not anymore.”</p><p>“Oh.” She believes it <em>far</em> too easily. He doesn’t know how there’s still any room for pain in her chest.</p><p>He clears his throat. “Well, that’s all I wanted to say.” He needs to go or he’ll collapse at her feet and beg her to forgive him.</p><p>“I can be happier,” she blurts out loudly. “I can be better. If you can maybe stay.”</p><p>He turns away quickly, because his face is screwed up with the sob that he can’t let out. He takes a deep breath. “It’s too late, Rey. It’s over. Don’t try to contact me.”</p><p>He doesn’t look back. He leaves before she can say anything else.</p><p>He goes home.</p><p>He goes to work. And the next day, and the day after that. He wins cases. He makes money for Snoke. He keeps her safe.</p><p>It’s torture. It’s worth it.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>So that happened. 😔</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Please note the added tags! 💛</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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</p><p> </p><p>He changes her contact name in his phone to “Unknown.” In case Snoke is monitoring his communications, which Ben suspects he is, that might make it less obvious. He deletes all their texts. He should block her number, to keep her safe, but he can’t bear it. What if she needs him?</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  
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</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Snoke might be watching. He probably is. Ben says what he has to to keep her safe.</p><p>He deletes the texts, after. But nothing can erase the memory of her anger. It’s good that she’s angry, he thinks. It’s better than being sad.</p><p>He wonders if she smiles now—if other people get to see her dimples.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  
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</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>He dreams about her.</p><p>She crawls in bed with him, warm and naked, and her hair is in a loose braid that she lets him undo with gentle fingers, and the scent of her shampoo wafts. He’s achingly hard, and she’s wet and soft and begging for his cock, but first he coats two fingers with her juices and slides them inside her. She gasps at the stretch, and he doesn’t kiss her because he doesn’t want to take his eyes away from her for even one second. Her muscles ripple around him, and he feels every twitch as she squeezes him. He buries his fingers as deep as they’ll go and crooks them over and over for her until his tendons burn. In his dreams, her face comes back to him as vivid as life. When she gets close, her eyebrows lift involuntarily and her mouth opens as if in surprise, and she looks down between her legs like she just realized that she had a cunt and that he was inside it. That was his favorite part. She locks eyes with him and comes desperately, clutching his wrist like she’s drowning.</p><p>His fingers are prunes when he takes them out, and he sucks them off. She smiles her brightest smile because she knows what’s coming next. She knows it’s only a matter of seconds between him making her come for the first time and his cock inside her. He’s too impatient to wait any longer. She used to love his impatience, would laugh and wiggle her hips and spread her legs even wider to let him in.</p><p>She loved to lie there and let him move on top of her, she told him. She said she liked to watch him grit his teeth and sweat. She’d turn her head to kiss his hand and say that his lawyer body should do some real work once in a while, and as punishment he’d fuck her deeper, harder, until nothing in the world existed but the slap of skin on skin and the way her eyes rolled back in her head.</p><p>It took him a while to get the hip thing just perfect for her. He wonders how the guy she’s seeing did it better the very first time.</p><p>Ben hopes he’s keeping her warm.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  
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</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>For their first date, he took her to the Lincoln Park Zoo. It was in the mid 60’s, and she’d worn a sundress, probably as a concession to the fact that it was spring and she was going on a date. But even with the knobby wool cardigan she wore over top of it, she shivered. He hadn’t worn a jacket, so he didn’t have anything to give her. She didn’t complain or even acknowledge it: she accepted the shivering as a matter of course. They’d already seen the apes and the primates, the birds and the small mammals. They’d meandered as far as the giraffes, which had drawn a fair crowd because one of them was walking around. There was only enough space for one person at the viewing railing, so Ben stood behind Rey as she watched them. The wind gusted, and she shivered particularly violently, and he couldn’t stand it any more. He wrapped his arms around her. She put her arms over his and pressed him closer. He kissed her temple and she laced her fingers through his.</p><p>They watched the giraffes for a long time.</p><p>He remembers May 12th.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  
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</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>She’s not any more lost to him than she already was—that’s what he tells himself. And besides, she’s happy. This is everything he could have asked for.</p><p>Almost.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  
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</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>He supposes that people keep journals, or diaries. They don’t get home from work at 11 every night and draft a text to their ex that they immediately delete, so there’s no record of it. Other people probably don’t have bosses that control every part of their lives, though. If Ben kept a journal, Snoke would find it.</p><p>Ben doesn’t have a sense of how many people Snoke has as his eyes and ears. “Money is power,” Snoke always says, and with the money he has, there’s little limit to his power. When Ben comes home to find a stack of mail not quite in the same position where he left it, he wonders if the cleaning lady is naturally nosy or if she’s paid to be so. He assumes the latter.</p><p>
  <em> Money is power. </em>
</p><p>He’s too far entangled. None of Snoke’s threats were empty. Ben could easily be jobless and unemployable, homeless, and broke if Snoke decided to make it happen. It wouldn’t even be hard for him, either. That’s the part that rankles: that Ben had voluntarily signed over so much of his life to Snoke’s keeping. He should suck it up and get on with life, he tells himself. He has Egyptian cotton sheets to cry into in his penthouse apartment. He’s lucky.</p><p>Snoke gives him little digs once in a while. <em> I hear New York a nice place to live this time of year. I guess you’ll never know, will you, my boy? </em></p><p>
  <em> Oh, I meant to tell you, your stock portfolio wasn’t doing as well as it could’ve been. I shifted some things around for you. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Mitaka had to get home to the old ball and chain. Good thing that’s not something you have to worry about, eh? </em>
</p><p>Ben bites his tongue until he thinks his teeth might leave permanent marks. <em> Yes, sir. </em></p><p>One night Ben comes to Snoke’s office at 10:30, just as he’s about to leave for the day. “I’m heading out, sir. The deposition is in your inbox.”</p><p>“I saw it,” Snoke says, glancing up. “Do you really think it was your best work?”</p><p>This is the part where Ben dutifully answers <em>no, sir</em>. Where he says, <em>I’m sorry, sir.</em> <em>I’ll do better next time, sir. </em>But suddenly a memory comes: Rey’s hair splayed out on his pillow. He thinks about her dimples, and the way her voice faltered when she said <em>I can be better. If you can maybe stay.</em> And he’s filled with a rage that he doesn’t recognize, and he says, “Yes, sir.”</p><p>Snoke is taken aback. “What did you say?”</p><p>“I said yes, sir, that deposition was excellent work. Like I always do for you.”</p><p>The old man blusters, “Well, if you think the client is going to be satisfied—”</p><p>Ben interrupts. “You know what, sir? I never saw the benefit of working for a firm that defends the scum of the earth until now. Because the cops, the ASAs, they all hate you, sir. I could kick you to the floor in the middle of a Fraternal Order of Police meeting and there’d be a hundred witnesses that you tripped. And that says something pretty fucked up about the cops, but it also says that there’s a limit to the power your money gives you.” The words pour out, and he doesn’t try to stop them. “You have power over me, sure. You can evict me and fire me and steal all my money, and I invite you to do all of those things. But Rey is a mechanic. She rented the upstairs unit of her boss’s house for almost nothing, because he thinks of her as a niece. If you went to his shop and tried to get him to fire or evict her, he’d laugh in your face. If you harmed a hair on her head, every ASA in this city would work around the clock until you were convicted. That is, unless I killed you first, which would be a distinct possibility. But you won’t do anything. You know how I know? Because your money’s no good when it comes to her. <em> That’s </em> where your control ends.”</p><p>Snoke is pale and trembling, whether with fear or impotent fury Ben doesn’t care.</p><p>“I’m only going to say this once, so listen very carefully. I’ve stood your abuse for years, and it took Rey coming into my life for me to see it for what it was. I won’t do it for one second longer. You have no power over me anymore.”</p><p>Ben walks back to the door and holds it open so Snoke’s assistant can hear his calm, collected parting words. “Good night, sir.”</p><p>He thought he would start shaking on the elevator, but he doesn’t. Either there’s no aftereffect of the adrenaline or else it’s still coursing through him. He thinks, tries to plan. He has his wallet and the clothes on his back. He checks his billfold and finds two grand in cash. He wonders if he can get to an ATM before Snoke freezes his accounts. There’s one in the corner of the lobby. He feeds his card in, and a message flashes: “Card held. Account problem reported. Please contact...” He doesn’t stay to read the rest.</p><p>He takes out his phone and quickly commits Rey’s number to memory before dropping the phone down a storm drain. He considers bumming a stranger’s phone to try to call her, but he doesn’t know if she’d answer an unknown number. And besides, he doesn’t know what he’d say.</p><p>It’s five miles to her place, give or take. She might not even live there anymore. She may have moved in with her boyfriend. But he decides to try anyway. Because for all his bravado, Ben isn’t entirely sure that Snoke wouldn’t try to do something to her. She deserves to know, and she deserves to have him as a round-the-clock bodyguard, if she’ll let him, until he’s convinced Snoke won’t try anything. He starts to walk.</p><p>His shoes aren’t meant for walking, and they start to chafe a couple miles in. He probably has a full-fledged blister by mile four, though he resolves that as long as he can’t see it he can pretend it’s not there. By the time he’s half a mile from her place, he’s limping noticeably. The pain distracts him from the fact that he hasn’t decided what he’s going to say to her, which is a problem. He’s a lawyer. He doesn’t do well without prep.</p><p>If she’s not there, at least her boss might be able to tell him where she lives. Or he could try calling her after all, though his watch tells him it’s past midnight. If all else fails, he could go to the garage and wait for her to get there in the morning.</p><p>Above all else, he’s unprepared for the prospect of <em> seeing </em> her, let alone talking. He might do something stupid at the sight of her, like tell her with his mouth the things his thumbs typed but couldn’t send.</p><p>
  <em> I’ll never stop loving you. </em>
</p><p>He rounds the final corner and sees a light on in her window. He reminds himself sternly that he doesn’t even know if it’s hers anymore. Or she could be there with <em> him. </em> The old paint on the wooden staircase up the side of the building is still peeling. He should’ve made the time to paint it for her. He wonders if that rusty nail is still sticking up on the fourth step. He takes a deep breath, wipes his palms on his jacket, and starts to ascend.</p><p>It’s silent inside, or maybe he just can’t hear anything over the throbbing of his heartbeat in his ears. He knocks on the door and swallows as he looks at the peephole. He doesn’t hear her footsteps, just her voice.</p><p>“Why are you here?”</p><p>He clears his throat. “I need to talk to you.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Can I come in?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Then can you come out here?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“There’s something you need to know.”</p><p>“I think you said everything you needed to last year, don’t you?”</p><p>She <em> is </em>still angry, after all. That’s fair. “I lied to you last year.”</p><p>She wrenches the door open. “Why are you here, Ben?”</p><p>She’s still as beautiful as ever. Or maybe more beautiful. If someone had asked him when they were together if he thought it would be possible for her to be any more beautiful than she already was, he’d have laughed in their face. But here she is, with the lamp behind her a golden halo around her head, with messy hair and sweats and the most beautiful face he’s ever seen.</p><p>“Well?” she snaps.</p><p>“Rey,” he marvels.</p><p>She crosses her arms. “Leave.”</p><p>“No, wait, I’m sorry. I’m doing this wrong. Just give me five minutes, and then you’ll never have to see me again.”</p><p>Her arms tighten across her. “Two. And I’m not letting the cold in.”</p><p>He thinks at first she means for him to come in, but she stands her ground expectantly until he backs up so there’s room for her on the landing. She unlocks the doorknob before shutting it behind her.</p><p>She gives him no encouragement. He launches in.</p><p>“Snoke has always had control over me, ever since law school. I looked up to him. He was the first person to really take an interest in me, to care about my success. I considered him a mentor. A role model. I trusted him. When I started working for his firm, he set me up with all sorts of things that he assured me were normal on-boarding procedures. An apartment leased from a property management company he had a controlling interest in. Financial accounts with his name as well as mine. I thought it was unusual at the time, but I didn’t question it. It seemed like a mark of his favor toward me, and I craved that.</p><p>“I don’t know how soon he knew that I was seeing you. Probably from the start, since he had surveillance on my phone. For the first time, there was something else in my life that made me happy. Happier than Snoke’s favor or the firm. He couldn’t let that happen. He bided his time, though. He didn’t do anything early on, when we were still happy and I was newly in love, because I think he thought your pull on me might be too strong. He waited until he could see from our texts that we were having trouble, that you were unhappy. He tried to convince me to leave you.”</p><p>Her face is stone in the darkness. Ben stumbles on.</p><p>“I told him no. He said that if I didn’t leave you, he’d fire me and make sure I never got another job, and evict me and steal my money. He threatened you. He said I didn’t want to find out what would happen to you if I didn’t leave. I agreed. I knew I would have to hurt you to keep you safe. I didn’t think it would be so easy to convince you that I wasn’t still in love with you. I hoped you knew how much I loved you. But you didn’t. You believed me, and you thought it was your fault.” A sob hitches in the back of his throat, but he forces it down. “None of it was your fault, Rey. <em> None. </em> I chose not to be there for you to keep Snoke happy, and <em> I </em> couldn’t be what you needed. It wasn’t you. You were everything.”</p><p>She shivers.</p><p>“You’re cold,” he says, reaching out to her automatically. She recoils, and he draws his hand back.</p><p>“Why are you telling me this now?” she asks coldly.</p><p>“Because I left Snoke. And I’m almost certain he won’t actually do anything to harm you, but I just wanted to make sure you were safe. And that you knew.”</p><p>She’s shaking her head. “You liar. You’re telling me to make yourself feel better.”</p><p>He can’t deny it, entirely, so he doesn’t.</p><p>“You’re an asshole. You wait until you think I’m over you and then you come back and <em> say </em> things, and...”</p><p>“I’m not expecting anything,” he says quickly. “I know you’re with someone else. That you’re happy.”</p><p>She laughs incredulously and shakes her head. “You really don’t get it, do you, Ben?” Her lips are turning blue.</p><p>He doesn’t know what he doesn’t get.</p><p>“You think you can just come here, and— and dredge up all this old shit just to... What’s the point? What’s the point of telling me you still loved me?” There are tears on her face.</p><p>“I just wanted you to know that... it wasn’t you. You didn’t need to be happier, or better, or anything other than exactly who you were. I hope the guy you’re with now never makes you feel that way.”</p><p>“I’m not with anyone,” she snaps, wiping her nose on her sleeve.</p><p>“Oh.” He chews the inside of his cheek. “You broke up, or...”</p><p>“I was never with someone. I told you that to hurt you.”</p><p>The shaking that didn’t start in the elevator starts now. He grips the railing as his knees tremble.</p><p>“I was never happy. I never moved on. But I have my pride, and I needed you to think that I did, okay?” She’s fully crying now, and trying not to let him see. She wipes her cheeks hurriedly. “And now you know, so congratulations. You win. I just want to know one thing.”</p><p>He can’t speak, so he nods.</p><p>“Why didn’t you send me what you wrote?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“At 11. Every night. You would start to text me, and I would see the grey bubbles pop up, and you would never send it.”</p><p>“Rey.” He takes a small step toward her, and she stiffens. “Why were you watching?”</p><p>She doesn’t answer.</p><p>“Were you lonely?” His voice is gentle.</p><p>She covers her mouth with her hand, but it doesn’t stop the sob that erupts. She nods.</p><p>He takes another step toward her. “I think I may have said something wrong. When I told you that when I left you I still loved you, did you think I meant that I don’t love you anymore? Because I love you, Rey. I loved you and I love you and I will love—”</p><p>He doesn’t get the last word out, because the force of her against his chest knocks the wind from his lungs. She’s sobbing and laughing, and her face is wet where it’s buried in his neck, and his arms cling to her with every ounce of strength he has. She doesn’t wait to stop crying before she kisses him, and he tastes her tears along with her tongue. He tries to pour into the kiss all the texts he never sent. He tries to kiss her hard enough to drive from her memory all the days when he didn’t kiss her. Her hands are freezing at his neck, and her cheek is cold against his, so he picks her up and she wraps her legs around his waist so he can carry her inside to the warmth.</p><p>He doesn’t put her down inside, and she doesn’t kiss him again. She just looks down at him and smiles.</p><p>He hugs her tighter to him. “Come with me.”</p><p>“Where?”</p><p>“Anywhere. We’ll drive south until you’re warm. I’ll get a job. We’ll make a home.”</p><p>Her smile fades slowly. She lets go of him with her legs, and he sets her down. “Why?”</p><p>“I can’t stay here, where Snoke is. And it’s too cold for you. We can have a new life.”</p><p>She shakes her head. “I can’t leave.”</p><p>“Why not? You can be a mechanic anywhere, Rey. Do it in the hot sun. Come with me.”</p><p>She wipes the last tears away with a calm resignation, like she knew it was too good to be true. They were happy for a minute, at least. Oh well.</p><p>“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”</p><p>“I can’t leave. I’m waiting for my parents.”</p><p>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>It’s unreal how much I wanted to just give my sweet babies their happy ending in this chapter, but they have some more things to work through. ❤️</p><p>Feel free to check my <a href="https://twitter.com/CeliaAnd2">Twitter</a> for updates on the last chapter!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Her living room feels too small for him and her and everything that’s between them. His shoulders slump, but he doesn’t ask to sit down. If he sits down he’ll never leave her, and so he can’t sit down until she says he can.</p><p>“What do you mean?” he asks.</p><p>“They had to leave me here, but they’re going to come back, so I can’t leave, because what if they can’t find me when they come?” She cups her elbows in her opposite hands and looks at his knees.</p><p>He’d like to cry, but first he has to understand. “When did they leave you?”</p><p>“When I was five.” Her chin juts out defiantly.</p><p>“Who did they leave you with?”</p><p>“Someone who...” she bites her lip. “...didn’t take care of me very well.”</p><p>“Sweetheart—”</p><p>She shakes her head vehemently and meets his eyes. “Don’t call me that.”</p><p>“Okay.” He scrubs a tired hand over his face. “Rey. Why do you think they’re going to come back?” It comes out harsher than he intends.</p><p>New tears spring to her eyes. “Because I’m their <em>daughter.”</em></p><p>“Were they...addicts? Mentally ill?”</p><p>She cradles her elbows tighter against her. The defiant scrunch of her nose is confirmation.</p><p>He wants to close the distance between them and tuck her in his arms. He knows how well she fits. But he can’t, because her tears when he kissed them from her cheeks would taste too much like goodbye. “What if they don’t come back?”</p><p>“They will,” she snaps.</p><p>“It’s been twenty years. Have they contacted you at all?”</p><p>She looks at his shoes as she shakes her head.</p><p>“The fact that they left wasn’t your fault, Rey. You know that, right? You could have been the most love-worthy child in the world, and you <em>were,</em> and they still would have left you.”</p><p>“I know that,” she says in a voice choked with tears. She turns away from him. He watches the back of her head and loves her so much it physically hurts.</p><p>“I could...” He fumbles for words, and he finds them. “I could be your family.” That’s it. <em>That’s</em> what he’s trying to say.</p><p>Her voice is small, diminished. “I already have a family.”</p><p>“But I love you.” His voice breaks.</p><p>“It’s too late.” She wipes her cheeks with her palms, trying not to let him see. He sees. “Maybe it was better when I thought you didn’t.”</p><p>“Fuck, Rey, <em>please</em> don’t say that. We can still be together, we can find a way—”</p><p>She turns back around to face him, and he reads nothing in her face but calm resolve. “You can’t stay here. And I can’t leave.” She takes a deep breath. “We should both get on with our lives.”</p><p>He sways on the spot. Suddenly the day’s events hit him—<em>really</em> hit him—and he stands there broke and homeless and cold and tired and alone. All he has is a billfold of cash, a suit, shoes that give him blisters, and love.</p><p>“Don’t look at me like that,” she snaps.</p><p>He doesn’t know how he’s looking at her. He doesn’t say anything.</p><p>“You didn’t think you had hurt me enough, you had to come back and...” She paces over to him angrily. “You don’t get to...” she sputters. “What makes you think you can...” She’s kissing him before he has a chance to talk, or think. She pulls his face down hungrily, and he drags her against him and pins her to him.</p><p>“Rey,” he gasps against her. “Need you.”</p><p>Her hands are in his hair. “Yes.”</p><p>His mouth moves to her neck, and she presses her whole self against him like if their bodies can just get close enough, that would fix everything. Somehow. Their clothes are in the way, though, and she realizes it before he does. He lets her unbutton his shirt because his hands are too busy cradling her back and her neck and his mouth is too busy kissing every inch of skin it can reach.</p><p>“Ben,” she prods impatiently, and he finally lets her go so he can clumsily fumble with his pants. He gets them halfway around his knees before he stumbles and trips in his haste, and she already has her sweats off and is standing there in old grey underwear and threadbare socks with her arms wrapped around herself because she’s cold and she’s laughing. He ends up on the floor and wiggles his way out of his pants and crawls to her and kneels at her feet and wraps his arms around her thighs and kisses her belly that’s shaking because she’s laughing.</p><p>Snoke can find him, he can do his worst, because Rey is laughing and Ben is at her feet and there is no fucking way that he’s leaving her. Her laughs quiet and her hands rest on his head. He looks up at her, and she looks down at him. She’s shivering, or trembling. He doesn’t know which.</p><p>Her eyes are as serious as he’s ever seen them. “This is just tonight.”</p><p>“You’re cold, lizard.” He rubs his palm over the back of her leg, where goosebumps have taken up residence.</p><p>“Ben. Say it’s just tonight.” She takes a deep breath. “Or leave now.”</p><p>He looks up at her and he knows he’s going to leave his heart in this little apartment when he goes. He wonders how long you can survive without a heart.</p><p>He doesn’t argue. He’s not her family. “It’s just tonight.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>She climbs him like a koala so she can kiss him as he walks them to the bedroom. He’d forgotten just how perfectly she fits here: her legs around his middle and his arm around her back and her lips on his lips. He doesn’t let her down when he gets to her room, just walks right over to the bed and bends down to pull back the covers so he can deposit her right into bed and tug her panties off and climb in on top of her and pull the blankets back over both of them to warm her up. Maybe he’ll never see her bare breasts again, or the curve of her spine, or the little brown mole on the side of her knee. But he can see her face in the moonlight and that’s enough. That’s more than enough.</p><p>He settles in between her legs and props himself on his elbows to look down at her.</p><p>“Don’t,” she whimpers, and covers his eyes with her cold hand.</p><p>“Just tonight,” he begs with her words.</p><p>He can feel her hesitate, but she relents and slides her hand down to his lips instead, and he sucks two of her cold fingers into his hot mouth and she whimpers. “Ben.”</p><p>Her other hand creeps inside his underwear. She places it first against his hip to warm it, and his muscles shy away from her icicle fingers and she giggles. He slides his mouth off her fingers, because she can’t expect him to giggle underneath him and not be thoroughly kissed. That’s unrealistic. Her other hand snakes beneath the waistband of his briefs too, and he would lie in this bed forever with freezing hands inches from his cock as long as they were hers.</p><p>She mumbles something against his mouth that he can’t hear until she turns her head to the side.</p><p>“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”</p><p>“I don’t have any condoms.”</p><p>“Oh.” He stills on top of her. “Do we— need them?”</p><p>She looks up at him. “Do we?” He hears the question she doesn’t say.</p><p>“No,” he shakes his head vehemently. “Only you.”</p><p>“Why, though?” Her voice is small. “You could’ve been less sad.”</p><p>He strokes her cheek with his thumb. “You could’ve been less lonely.”</p><p>She turns away again, avoiding his eyes. He gives her time.</p><p>When she speaks, her voice is tremulous. “D’you...still want to do this, even if I might cry?”</p><p>Tears spring to his eyes. “Rey.” His voice is gruff. “Do you not want to?”</p><p>“I <em>do,”</em> she says firmly, looking up at him.</p><p>“I love you,” he says slowly, “and I know you don’t want to hear that, and I know this is just goodbye for you. But I want everything—” He has to take a breath to steady his voice. “Every second you’ll give me.”</p><p>“Ben,” she says quietly, and she’s already crying, and he’s kissing her tears and she’s taking his cock out and rubbing it against her opening, and when she notches it in and he starts to push inside, she holds onto his shoulders with everything she has and cries.</p><p>His thrusts are slow and tender, and that makes her cry harder, but when he tries to pull out to check on her she locks her ankles at his rear to keep him in. “Please,” she sobs, “please, Ben.”</p><p>So he fucks her gently and buries his face in her hair and he cries too, and this is the only possible goodbye for the mess that they are. The mess that he made of them.</p><p>Her tears stop first. She cradles his head in her hands and she lets him weep and she opens her hips wider to help them fit together like the stray puzzle pieces they are. When she comes she does it quietly, like she doesn’t want to disturb him. He presses his cheek to hers and gives her the little thrusts that his body knows hers craves to work her through it.</p><p>“Oh,” she keens, “oh.” Just a syllable—a letter, really. Of surprise, of disappointment, of pleasure. Of resignation, too, to what they should’ve been but never were.</p><p>He doesn’t bother to wipe his tears. “You’re going to be cold again after I leave.”</p><p>“I know.” Her heels urge his hips on. “I know.”</p><p>He fucks her hard, then. He braces his arms beside her and looks down at her and drinks in her every moan, every flutter, every writhing grasp. His hips roll in the way that they haven’t forgotten, and his cock savages that place inside her in a silent entreaty. He holds his breath and drinks her in. If he stores her up in his cells maybe he won’t die quite so quickly without his heart.</p><p>“I love you,” he accuses. “I <em>love</em> you.” He sounds angry. She knows better.</p><p>He should’ve made it last. He shouldn’t have fucked her so hard that his cock had no choice but to shoot its contents deep inside. At least he took her with him. The world stopped for both of them, for a second, and the fireworks at the back of his eyes were hers too.</p><p>He rolls off her after. Stares up at the ceiling. He doesn’t say anything, because there’s nothing left to say.</p><p>If he could make her love him, he would’ve done it already.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>He wakes in the middle of the night to the bite of cold feet on his legs.</p><p>She’s asleep. It was her body that reached out for her hot rock, not her mind. He can give her this, at least.</p><p>Maybe he can buy her thick socks before he leaves in the morning.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>They barely talk over breakfast. Their spoons are loud against the cereal bowls. He steals glances at her occasionally, but only when he’s sure she’s not looking.</p><p>If he could sell his soul to convince her to come with him, he would.</p><p>“I can get you a car,” she says, not looking at him.</p><p>“I only have two thousand dollars. I can’t afford it.”</p><p>She shakes her head. “No charge. I can call in a favor. It’ll be a junker, but it should last you a few thousand miles at least.”</p><p>“Oh.” He clears his throat. “Thank you.”</p><p>She scrapes the bottom of her bowl. “Where are you going?”</p><p>“I don’t know. I’ll drive south, figure it out.”</p><p>She looks up at him, then quickly looks away when she sees his eyes on her. “Your two thousand won’t last very long at motels.”</p><p>“I’ll get a job somewhere.”</p><p>“I don’t think there’s much call for $700-an-hour criminal defense lawyers in the heartland. And wouldn’t you need to pass the bar in whatever state you end up in?”</p><p>He smiles wryly. “Are you concerned about me?”</p><p>She scoffs. “You’ve never not been rich. You don’t know how the real world works.”</p><p>“I’m a CPA too. Snoke made me get certified. I barely did anything with it, but I have it. I can work at a bank or something.”</p><p>She looks moderately impressed in spite of herself. “They won’t pay you enough to live anywhere near like you’ve been living.”</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>She runs her thumb along the edge of the bowl, looking down at the milky dregs. “Or what if the car breaks down and you don’t know how to fix it?”</p><p>“Rey,” he says quietly, “I’ll figure it out. I promise. You don’t need to worry about me.”</p><p>“I’m not,” she insists.</p><p>“Okay.”</p><p>The silence descends again. She studies her bowl like there are answers there and not just soggy crumbs. Finally she stands up and picks up their bowls to bring them to the sink. “Go buy some clothes and shampoo and stuff,” she calls over her shoulder. “I’ll make the call about the car.”</p><p>His blisters chafe. The corner store a block away has a small selection of tacky touristy tee-shirts and sweatshirts, and three-packs of men’s briefs. He shells out for one of each, plus toiletries and enough non-perishables for a few days on the road. The cashier squints at him suspiciously when he pulls out a hundred-dollar bill to pay. She makes a show of using the counterfeit detection marker on it. He passes the test. He makes a mental note to change his cash for twenties.</p><p>He limps back to her apartment laden with plastic “Thank you” bags. The stairs are an agony. At least he remembered to get Neosporin and Band-aids. He can stop at a Target or something to get shoes and the rest of the clothes he’ll need. He’ll need a suitcase or duffle too. Plus a phone. And Rey is right: motels aren’t cheap in the long term. The two thousand dollars is dwindling rapidly in his mental calculations.</p><p>He knocks on the door, and she opens it without looking at him. “My coworker is on his way with the car,” she tells his knees. “You can take a shower.”</p><p>He does. He tries to resist smelling her shampoo, but there’s only so much one man can stand. He dries himself off with the towel she left him and wipes the mirror free of condensation. He didn’t buy a razor. Maybe he’ll grow a beard instead.</p><p>It’s not how he wants to live in her memory: in a Windy City sweatshirt and creased slacks. He’d like her to remember him...well, as something he never was. Maybe he never can be.</p><p>He emerges from the bathroom to find her putting his purchases in her reusable shopping bags. She looks up guiltily, like he caught her doing something wrong.</p><p>“They’re better than nothing,” she says, biting her lip.</p><p>He nods curtly, because if he tries to speak he’ll cry.</p><p>Her phone buzzes. She checks it and announces, “He’s here.” Ben follows her out to the stoop but not down the stairs. The car isn’t as bad as he expected. Nothing like he’s ever owned or driven, of course, but it’ll work.</p><p>Ben loads the car with all his worldly possessions. It takes an alarmingly short amount of time: not because of how little he has but because once the car is packed he’s going to drive away and she’s going to stay here, and that’s unthinkable. So he doesn’t think.</p><p>“Wait here,” she says, once the car is all packed, and she runs up and comes back down with a nearly-full jar of peanut butter. She presses it into his hands and says, “Oh, one more thing,” and goes back upstairs and comes down with a pillowcase. “Make sure you check for bedbugs,” she says, handing it to him. “Untuck the covers at the bottom of the bed and take a flashlight—oh, I’ll get you a flashlight.” She turns to go back upstairs, but he catches her arm.</p><p>He tugs her gently toward him. “Rey.” He tips her chin up softly. She resists at first, but she finally meet his eyes. Really <em>looks</em> at him, for the first time since he was inside her. “I’ll be fine. I promise. Wait for your family, sweetheart. It’s okay. I’ll be okay.”</p><p>She pulls away, shaking her head. “I just need to—” she wrings her hands. “Just need to get one more thing. Wait here.” She pauses at the foot of the stairs and turns back toward him. “Wait here, okay?” she pleads.</p><p>He nods.</p><p>She’s upstairs for a long time. He doesn’t know what she could be getting, but it doesn’t much matter. He leans against the car and breathes the air that she breathed.</p><p>When she comes out the door he can’t tell what she’s carrying at first. She heaves her burden down the stairs, and he automatically goes to help her. He freezes at the bottom of the stairs when he gets a good look. She has a stuffed-full duffle bag over one shoulder, and she’s carrying a bulging garbage bag in each hand.</p><p>She reaches the bottom. She looks at him and sets the bags down. “So here’s the thing,” she says. “My boss died three months ago. I’m all alone. And even if my parents do come back, I won’t really know them. And maybe if I get to know them I’ll love them, but that’s not for sure, right?” His heart thumps in his ears. “Because just because you’re related to someone doesn’t mean you love them. And I don’t want to wait here for a family that I might not love, I don’t want to make that gamble.” She presses on despite the tears in her voice and eyes. “I already have someone who loves me and I thought I could do without that, but I don’t have to and I don’t want to. Because I already have a family, Ben, okay? And it’s you and—”</p><p>It’s just as well that she put the bags down, because he would still have picked her up and twirled her around while she laughed and cried, but it would’ve been harder if the duffle were still on her shoulder. He sets her down when they’re dizzy and breathless and he kisses her, and then he’s dizzy and breathless for another reason and all he can do is cling to her and say <em>I love you</em> over and over until the words fill her up.</p><p>One of the garbage bags is full of trash. Things to leave behind. There’s plenty to take, too. She leaves the key under the steps. They get in the car and she puts her hand on his thigh and her feet on the dashboard and they drive until the sun sets. She checks for bedbugs and he changes the pillowcases and he leaves the light on so he can see her bare breasts, and the curve of her spine, and the mole on the side of her knee. The bedsprings squeak. She laughs. So does he.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>They drive until she’s not cold anymore.</p><p>The desert is chilly at night, but she soaks up the heat during the day and stores it up to share with him in their bed. She works in a garage. He works at one of the three local banks on the main street. She drops him off on the way to work and picks him up after. He learns to cook. She fixes the faulty water heater. They paint the living room yellow and the bedroom green. They hang curtains. She scrubs the stains from the stucco outside. He holds the ladder so she doesn’t fall.</p><p>Spring becomes summer, and the heat bears down. She basks in it. She comes alive: his lizard. She lives in tank tops and shorts. He sweats and loves her.</p><p>It’s easier than he thought it would be. Life. With just enough money and nothing much to spend it on. Who needs money, anyway, as long as they have a cutting board and a knife and some fresh fruit, and a tan, freckled Rey to feed it to? Her smile is free. They don’t have to pay anyone for what they do in their bed. Or bent over their kitchen table. Or stretched out on the living room floor on long Sunday afternoons.</p><p>It’s a strange thing to learn: how to be happy. Not just in stolen, secret hours with her. He becomes <em>usually</em> happy. Her old anger doesn’t go away. It comes out in flashes and burns him, sometimes. They slowly learn how to tell each other things. Like hurts, and fears, and sorry.</p><p>He doesn’t need to text her, or type her what he then deletes. He can whisper it in her ear at night. They forget how to be lonely.</p><p>They have a new anniversary now, to add to the others.</p><p>He has a whole family.</p><p>So does she.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hey, thanks for waiting for me. ❤️</p><p>I’m on <a href="https://twitter.com/CeliaAnd2">Twitter</a>.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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